Drama Review 'The Man In My House' Episode 14

BY HanCinema
| Dec 07, 2016 05:37 AM EST

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The gangster plotline is resolved very quickly. Well, allegedly anyway. Na-ri does make some pretty good points when it comes to Nan-gil's extracurricular activities. It's not just that the guy disappears- the real issue is that Nan-gil consistently does so without explanation, so Na-ri doesn't have a clue how dangerous the overall situation really is. Granted, Na-ri being so out of the loop on the main plot in general is one of the more annoying issues that has plagued "The Man In My House" lately.

It is admittedly fairly appropriate for her character. Considering how every male figure in Na-ri's life comes up with obvious lies and unimpressive excuses to rationalize bad behavior, it's little wonder that it took so long for Na-ri to trust and Nan-gil, and this also explains why even now she gets frustrated so easily with him. The minute Na-ri acquiesces to Nan-gil's advances, he went and got embroiled in a completely different part of the story.

I'm making a lot of assumptions about Na-ri's psychology, of course, because the perspective by now has completely turned around to Nan-gil, making Na-ri a supporting character in what is allegedly her own story. One scene, where Na-ri has a chat with Yeo-joo, felt surprisingly out of place for exactly this reason. Time was Na-ri's emotional reactions to Yeo-joo were important for establishing Na-ri's personality. Now, much like Yeo-joo herself, these moments of characterization are unnecessary.

Elsewhere the story continues to creep at slow speeds. Deok-bong takes a step backward, then a step forward, then for reasons that still aren't completely clear to me just throws a big party for everyone. Like so many of the characters in "The Man In My House", Deok-bong is stranded with his own island of information that he refuses to share with anyone, leaving us waiting impatiently for the pay-off when the entire story is finally strung together into a cohesive whole.

And we are getting to that point, bit by bit. It looks like the final two episodes will chiefly deal with the drama's final mystery of what, exactly, is the deal with Na-ri's weird relatives. But even if the ultimate explanation proves to be satisfying, as a climax this final denouement will inevitably be a letdown because a single fraudster can't really be a convincing antagonist compared to a full-blown criminal organization. Especially one with Nan-gil's supposed father as the chief- not much has been done with the emotional implications of that.